Will 'Pumped Up Kicks' yield Grammy gold for Foster the People?

View full sizeJoseph LlanesFoster the People -- from left, Mark Pontius, Mark Foster and Cubbie Fink -- earned a Grammy nomination for "Pumped Up Kicks," a Top 5 single with a gun-toting refrain. "For me, the song was a social observation," says Foster, who grew up in Northeast Ohio. "I wrote it from the perspective of a troubled kid."

Grammy predictions

There isn't a Grammy Award for most unlikely hit. If there were, though, "Pumped Up Kicks" would be a solid contender. As it stands, the Top 5 smash by Foster the People is up for best pop duo/group performance at this year's Grammy ceremony.

The other nominees in the same category are the heavily favored Tony Bennett/Amy Winehouse duet "Body and Soul," as well as the Black Keys' "Dearest," Coldplay's "Paradise" and the Maroon 5/Christina Aguilera collaboration "Moves like Jagger."

"We're up against some pretty stiff competition," Foster said by phone recently from a tour stop in Australia.

"Just being there will be an honor. I'm not really worried about it."

Foster the People is based in Los Angeles, but singer and chief songwriter Foster (who plays keyboards and guitar) grew up in Northeast Ohio. The band also includes bassist Cubbie Fink and drummer Mark Pontius.

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Their full-length debut, "Torches," came out in May. It received a Grammy nod in the best alternative music album category, too.

"So many of my childhood dreams were fulfilled last year," said Foster, who turns 28 on Feb. 29.

"Pumped Up Kicks" proved to be Foster the People's ticket to the big time. Taking its title from a slang phrase for expensive shoes, the song is a lollipop laced with gunpowder. Catchy? You bet. Yet the ear-candy music, complete with hand claps and whistling, belies the dark lyrical content, which pokes around inside the head of a homicidal young person. Go ahead -- sing along:

All the other kids with the pumped up kicksYou better run, better run, outrun my gunAll the other kids with the pumped up kicksYou better run, better run, faster than my bullet

"After I wrote it, I would've never guessed in a million years that it would be our breakout hit," Foster said.

"I've written hundreds of songs, and I tend to think that my instincts are pretty good when it comes to what people are going to like and what people aren't going to like. I like the song, but it kind of went over my head. I didn't expect it to do what it did."

Tales of a first-grade Popeye

When Foster was in Cleveland in December for a family visit (his father and two younger brothers still live here), he heard a local radio show do a segment on "Pumped Up Kicks," with callers phoning in to debate the song's merits.

"I've reached the point where I don't know if I really want to talk about what my lyrics are about anymore," he said.

"Honestly, I spent every single interview I did last year trying to convey what 'Pumped Up Kicks' is about. I wanted to clear up misconceptions about the song being a violent anthem for kids, because that was never what I intended it to be. For me, the song was a social observation about something that's real and something that's happening and something that needs to be changed."

Namely, youth gun violence.

"I wrote it from the perspective of a troubled kid, as opposed to a victim's perspective or a parent's perspective," Foster said.

In the annals of pop music, this isn't entirely uncharted terrain. The Boomtown Rats, led by Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, topped the charts in 1979 with "I Don't Like Mondays." It was inspired by a schoolyard shooting spree in San Diego.

When Isaac Green heard "Pumped Up Kicks," it was love at first listen for the Columbia Records executive who signed Foster the People to the company's StarTime International imprint.

"The melody is terrific, and the lyrics are very interesting," Green said.

"Mark is a very good lyricist. He likes to tell stories. You can tall he's an observer of other people and he's empathetic to others' feelings, and that's conveyed in 'Pumped Up Kicks' and his other lyrics.

"There's something that goes beyond the typical sort of bookshelf narcissism of most pop stars."

Foster's musical talent manifested itself at an early age.

"Mark was gifted," said Joan Sidor, a music teacher at Independence Primary School. There, in first grade, Foster sang a solo as Popeye the Sailor in a school musical.

"He had a really good voice," Sidor said.

"In the first grade, he could sing in tune. He had a very good ear, too. He was picking up harmonies just from records."

At her recommendation, Foster auditioned for the Cleveland Orchestra Children's Chorus. He got the gig and spent four years in the ensemble, under the direction of Ella Lee.

"My dad made brownies for her, basically thanking her for putting up with me," Foster recalled.

"I was rambunctious -- a boy's boy, full of energy. I wasn't a bad kid. I just liked to talk. And I was one of five boys surrounded by 80 girls. You can imagine the trouble that I got into."

On the other end of the sonic spectrum, Foster later joined a local hardcore band called Addicted.

"I don't think anyone would remember us," he said.

Beach Boys opened his ears

Foster was born in San Jose, Calif. His family moved to Northeast Ohio when he was 5.

"My dad came there to start a church," he said.

"He was a successful corporate salesman, and he gave it all up -- sold his Mercedes, bought a station wagon and moved the family to Cleveland. He's retired now, but he was a pastor for 20 years."

Foster took piano lessons and guitar lessons here and spent his formative years glued to the radio, especially oldies station WMJI FM/105.7.

"That was my own choice," he said.

"My parents didn't guide me to listen to that. It was just something that I was drawn to. 'I Get Around' came on one day. I'd never heard the Beach Boys before. The sound was so fresh to me. That was the first time when I truly was gripped by the power of music. It opened my eyes to the heights that music can achieve.

"In Cleveland, music was always a big part of my life. That's really where I cut my teeth."

Shortly after he graduated from Nordonia High School in 2002, Foster headed for the West Coast. Foster the People came together seven years later.

Before that, Foster worked odd jobs to make ends meet. He eventually found success as a jingle writer. His music has been featured in commercials for Chevron and Muscle Milk, among other clients.

"Operating within boundaries when I was writing jingles would serve as a great counterpoint to writing my own songs, where I could do whatever I wanted," he said.

"When I was done with my work day, the freedom would just spring out of me. Sometimes I would stay in the studio for another eight hours, until the next morning, and just write songs for myself."

He's already at work on material for the follow-up to "Torches," which also has yielded the hits "Helena Beat" and "Don't Stop (Color on the Walls)." Both of those tunes reached the Top 10 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart.

"I have a ton of ideas for the next record," Foster said.

"The one rule we have with our sound is to have no rules. We don't want to be boxed in by anything and we don't want to let people pigeonhole us. I get bored if I write in the same style for too long.

"One important thing for me with 'Torches' was to make a record that was versatile, so that on our second record and on our third record, we could go in any direction we want and people wouldn't be surprised. They would follow us as we continue to evolve.

"I love having the freedom of being able to do anything, bringing in influences from hip-hop and Motown and electronic music and jazz and Britpop, and throwing it all in a blender."